[wos] a2k conference, Yale Law School, April 06

[Volker Grassmuck]

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Yale Law School Information Society Project
http://islandia.law.yale.edu/isp/a2kconfmain.html

About the A2K Conference

In the digital era, most multinational corporations and policymakers
are of the view that the current trend characterised by increasing
intellectual property rights and corporate control over knowledge
best serve society's interests. At the same time, however, a growing
number of commentators believe that widespread access to knowledge
(A2K) and the preservation of a healthy knowledge commons are the
real basis for sustainable human development. Nonetheless,
intellectual property-based approaches continue to singlehandedly
dictate global legal norms and shape national legal infrastructures.

The first goal of the Yale A2K Initiative is to come up with a new
analytic framework for analysing the possibly distortive effects of
public policies relying exclusively on intellectual property rights.
Beyond this aim, the A2K initiative seeks to support the adoption and
development of alternative ways to foster greater access to knowledge
in the digitally connected environment.

The landmark A2K conference at Yale Law School will bring together
leading thinkers and activists on access to knowledge policy from
North and South, in order to generate concrete research agendas and
policy solutions for the next decade. This conference will be among
the first to synthesize the multifaceted and interdisciplinary
aspects of access to knowledge, ranging from textbooks and
telecommunications access to software and medicines. The A2K
Conference aims to help build an intellectual framework that will
protect access to knowledge both as the basis for sustainable human
development and to safeguard human rights.

For questions and comments, please contact Kris Kavanaugh